TRUMP: Somebody said, what would be your theory or what would you do in terms of Libya? I’d do one thing. Either I’d go in and take the oil or I don’t go in at all. We can’t be the policeman for the world.
CROWLEY: You’d just take their oil?
TRUMP: Absolutely. I’d take the oil. I’d give them plenty so they can live very happily. I would take the oil. You know, in the old days, Candy –
CROWLEY: Well, wait, we can’t go –
TRUMP: – Candy, Candy, in the old days, when you have a war and you win, that nation is yours.

So, Trump’s theory of war and statecraft is a crude “from the losers go all the spoils.” But for Trump, this approach evidently stops at US shores, for Trump hasn’t had to give up his tremendous wealth, despite filing for bankruptcy protection in 1991. And again in 1992. And yet again in 2004. And yet again in 2009.

Trump may just be the distillation of almost everything that’s gotten worse in America in recent years: jingoistic arrogance, a privatization of rewards and socialization of risk for the wealthy, while the rest of us are too often cast aside when we face hard times, and vapid celebrity. But what probably bothers me the most about Trump–and this applies to Sarah Palin as well–is an astonishing lack of self awareness, and an utter absence of what we could probably benefit from more of in America: a sense of shame.